


On the Field of Human Clay

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Good Hunting [21]
Category: NCIS, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 09:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12454125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "NCIS, any, possession."Evan receives a call from NCIS informing him that Sam and Dean are dead, and the team's day goes downhill from there.





	On the Field of Human Clay

“A gnome?” Rodney asked.

“Yes,” Miko said, oblivious to his distress. “Over in Ireland. For Earth.”

Sam and Dean, who were leaning over building blueprints spread on the motel room table, looked up when Rodney’s voice rose.

“They’re taking in the scenery in Jolly Old Ireland while we’re about to attempt an impossible heist on a federal institution? How is that even fair?” Rodney demanded.

John, who’d been checking emails on his laptop, stood up. “Hey.” He nudged Rodney. “Take it easy. To be fair, their team does have seniority, and in the military, seniority matters.”

Rodney grumbled under his breath.

Evan cleared his throat. “I would like to point out that we have Vala on our team, and her expertise in this area gives us an advantage.”

Vala stepped out of the bathroom with a flourish. She was dressed head to toe in black – black beanie, black turtleneck sweater, black uniform BDU pants, and black boots. Instead of her usual jaunty pigtails, her hair was pulled back into a braid and then coiled into a bun at the nape of her neck.

“You know who’d be handy right now?” Dean asked. “That Redfern vampire.”

“This is appropriate gear for covert entry into locked buildings,” Vala said. “Assuming we’re going in at night. My professional recommendation is that we go in at night, of course.” She had a pair of leather gloves tucked into a utility pouch on her belt. “Now, what information do you have for me on the security systems?” She crossed the motel room and insinuated herself between Sam and Dean to peer at the blueprints.

They were slated to steal a meteorite from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It was full of preserved prehistoric life from another planet, and between Carter, Hailey, Rodney, Miko, Bill Lee, and some of the other lore masters at Central Command, they were pretty sure it would make an effective alternative to earth from a gnome as a component in the spell to unlock the portal to Atlantis.

Even though this mission wasn’t as combat-intensive as the last one (seeing the ghost of Lyle Holland and meeting John’s ex-wife had sort of made everyone forget that Evan wasn’t exactly human), it was more dangerous in its own way, because they were going to break into a federal institution, and if they got caught, they were in a lot of trouble, and they were on their own. Vala had the most professional B&E experience. Sam and Dean had picked up some from their youth as road hunters, before their dad had settled down. The rest of them had, well, none.

Evan had it in him, to circumvent electrical systems, but it was better for everyone if he stuck to lore and magic from the Men of Letters.

Miko bounced up off the bed, data tablet in hand, and held it out to Vala for her to look at. “Exterior cameras, interior cameras, alarms on the doors and windows, lasers around the pedestals of the expensive and priceless displays, digital locks on all the display cases and, of course, a pressure-triggered alarm on the target display pedestal.”

“Do you have makes and models?” Vala asked. “And do we know how much the meteorite weights?”

“We know how much it weighs because we hacked the Smithsonian database,” Sam said, with no small amount of smugness. Between him, Rodney, and Miko, their team had formidable hacking talent.

If they were ever caught and the full list of their hunting methods was uncovered, they would all be in so much trouble.

Evan was making sure to order appropriate uniforms for everyone. It wasn’t just a question of sizes (he knew everyone’s sizes) and colors (black) but also the right fit, so they all had maximum mobility in their clothes, but so the combat-oriented members of the team had pockets for weapons and ammunition, which were different from the pockets the science members of the team needed to store devices and tools.

Vala’s uniform was the most complicated. Luckily, she knew what she needed, and she knew how to find it herself.

Today they were going to case the place – one at a time, wearing body cams, to get a sense of what security measures were in place, what the building felt like. During the bus ride, Vala had talked at length about preparing for a heist like this. They had to know how the floor felt under their feet, what their shoes would sound like. How steep were the stairs? Were the risers between each step uncomfortably high for someone as short as Miko? Where were the blind spots for the cameras?

The blueprints showed them how the building was laid out. The security specs showed them what systems were in place. They needed real-time observation to see how the system functioned, which components were where.

It’s like a dance, Vala had said. You have to know your partner.

A week to plan, one night to retrieve the target, then dispersing for two weeks, in case any one of them was caught. Evan would admit, under some amount of persuasion, that he was a bit of a control freak, and not knowing where his teammates would be for two weeks was going to be hard.

Well, he’d know where Dean was, or at least he’d always know if Dean was all right.

Vala had a system in place. They’d ship their phones back to the Bunker on the day of, pick up burner smart phones. Miko would engineer a comm system for them on the smart phones. Once they successfully retrieved the target, they’d abandon the phones, split up, purchase new burner phones, and each of them would check in with Central Command from those new phones.

Then it was two weeks of laying low, living like road hunters – Evan had procured beater cars for all of them to escape in – until they could rendezvous back at the Bunker.

Evan realized he’d never been alone for quite that long, not since he’d decided to stay on in his current form.

He pressed a hand to his heart, where he could feel his life bond to Dean pulse warm and bright.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean reach up and rub his chest absently.

Evan had his laptop open on his knees and the notepaper from Vala unfolded on his lap so he could see the types of custom pockets to order on their uniforms. He’d browsed the uniform ordering site, made sure he knew how the menus worked, what options were available. Between Sam’s legal know-how and Vala’s skill at deceit, everyone on the team was a shareholder in a dummy corporation that fronted as a security agency, so on a brief review no one would think twice of their ordering uniforms, weapons, and other similar supplies (that they couldn’t obtain in the ordinary course of their military service).

He opened his wallet, found the corporate credit card they all used for buying necessary mission supplies (a card that couldn’t be traced back to the Air Force and Project Orion), and his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He fished it out, tucked it against his shoulder. “Lorne here.”

“Mr. Lorne,” an unfamiliar woman said. She had a foreign lilt to her voice – English wasn’t her first language. “I am Officer Ziva David with NCIS.”

Ziva David. Hebrew name. She was Israeli.

Evan set his laptop aside. “NCIS, the Navy cops?”

At _cops,_ the rest of his teammates spun around to look at him.

“Yes, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” Ziva said.

Evan was confused. He was retired from active duty, not subject to stop-loss recall, and besides, he’d been with the Air Force, not the Navy or Marines. “What can I do for NCIS, Officer David?”

“Please, call me Ziva,” she said, and cleared her throat. “I am afraid I have some bad news. Are you sitting down?”

Evan looked down at himself. “Yes, I am.”

“I understand you are listed as next of kin for Captain Dean Eric Winchester,” she said.

“Yes, but – only secondary to his brother, Sam.”

Sam raised his eyebrows, pointed to himself.

Evan nodded.

Rodney opened his mouth to ask a question, but Evan held up a hand to forestall comment.

“Were Samuel available, I would have called him.”

“Is Sam not answering his phone?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lorne, but both Samuel and Dean Winchester are deceased. I was wondering if it was possible for you to come to NCIS headquarters to identify their remains –”

“That’s impossible,” Evan burst out.

“I am very sorry to upset you, Mr. Lorne, but –”

“No, I’m not upset,” Evan said, but he lifted his head, fixed his gaze on Dean anyway, reassuring himself of Dean’s presence. “That’s impossible because I’m with Sam and Dean right now.”

“Samuel and Dean Winchester?”

“Yes.”

“Lieutenant Samuel Winchester of the United States Air Force and Captain Dean Winchester of the United States Marine Corps?” Ziva echoed.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Ziva asked slowly.

“Absolutely. Would you like to talk to them?” Evan beckoned to Dean and Sam.

They started toward him, expressions hesitant.

Evan asked, “What makes you think they’re dead?”

 _“Dead?”_ Sam asked.

“Perhaps,” Ziva said, “Samuel and Dean Winchester would be willing to be interviewed here at NCIS headquarters.”

“I’ll let them speak for themselves,” Evan said. He turned his phone on speaker and held it out to Dean, who scooped it up.

“This is Dean Winchester. To whom am I speaking?”

“Officer Ziva David of NCIS,” she said.

“I thought NCIS had agents,” Dean said.

“I am a liaison officer from another agency,” Ziva said primly.

Another agency? With a name like that - not Mossad? Evan raised his eyebrows at Sam, who shrugged.

“You are Captain Dean Winchester of the United States Marine Corps?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I am. You know me, right? Sammy? I’m still your brother?”

“Is this your service number?” Ziva read it off.

Evan knew it by heart, had read it over and over again when he was tangled in Dean’s arms, curled against his chest and toying with his dog tags.

“Yes.”

“And your birthday is –?”

“January Fifth, 1979. What is this about?”

“I cannot discuss an open investigation,” Ziva began.

“You can if it involves you telling people I’m dead,” Dean said.

“Would you be able to come to NCIS headquarters for an interview? To assist in our investigation?” Ziva asked. She sounded a little flustered.

“I don’t know. Let me check with my lawyer. Sammy?”

Sam leaned in to the phone. “Ziva, this is Lieutenant Sam Winchester, USAF. I’m the JAG officer for my unit. To clarify, you want an interview, not an interrogation.”

“Yes,” Ziva said. “We would very much like your assistance – and to officially confirm that neither you nor your brother are dead.”

Sam unlocked his phone. “Let me clear this with my CO, but can you give me your address?”

“Of course,” Ziva said.

“Sir?” Sam looked at John.

“Don’t want to lose either of you to obstruction of justice charges,” John said. “So let’s go and play nice.”

Miko was already firing off text messages to Central Command.

Ziva rattled off the address – Navy Yard at Quantico – and thanked them for their assistance, and then she hung up.

Rodney stared at Evan. “You’re Dean’s next of kin?”

“After Sam.”

Rodney glanced at Sam, then Dean. “Could you make John mine?”

“Sure. Paperwork’s simple.” Evan stood up. “So, plan?”

“So we put this on hold and go talk to NCIS,” John said.

“But don’t lose sight of the hunt,” Rodney said. “We can work on the bus.”

After lugging all their gear inside mere hours before, they had to repack, haul it all back out to the bus. They checked out early, and then Dean was in the driver’s seat, Sam shotgun, Miko perched between them with her laptop open on her knees, reading them what she’d found about NCIS’s open investigation into them. Evan was sitting behind her, reading over her shoulder.

“Apparently two men with forged versions of your military credentials were found dead in a locked motel room near the Navy Yard. Some poor housekeeper discovered the bodies. No sign of forced entry, no sign of external trauma, but internally – their brains had exploded.”

“Locked room, no sign of forced entry, no external trauma?” Dean asked. “Sounds like our kind of thing.”

“Do the guys even look like us?” Sam asked.

“If I were to issue a police description of you – height, weight, hair color, eye color – the guy pretending to be Dean is spot on, but the guy pretending to be Sam is way too short.” Miko prodded at her laptop some more. “Neither of them are as good-looking as you.”

Evan hummed his agreement absently, scanning the report further.

“Why us, though?” Dean asked.

“The bigger question is,” Evan said, “does someone want you dead?”

Sam and Dean had a fairly formidable reputation, at least as among demons, angels, werewolves, and vampires.

“What creatures have mojo that make a guy’s brain explode inside their skull?” Sam asked.

“Angel smiting,” Dean said.

“That also results in burnt-out eyes, and that’s not in the autopsy report,” Miko said.

“What about demons?” Sam asked. “I mean, they can give people cancer for funzies.”

Evan thought of what he’d read in Dean’s hunting journal about the angel Zachariah. “So can angels.”

“Remember that one ghost at that jail?” Dean asked. “She gave people heart attacks.”

Sam nodded absently.

NCIS had run the IDs both corpses had on them. Someone pretty skilled had hacked the Department of Defense database and managed to insert the fake pictures into what level of SRB they could access. No one at NCIS would be able to see what Sam and Dean’s actual assignments were, so when they looked at the SRBs and saw Sam and Dean were both posted at Cheyenne Mountain for Deep Space Telemetry, they saw the faces belonging to the corpses they’d found.

“Could be a witch,” Evan said. Even now, witches still made him shiver. “They can do almost anything they can think up with magic, and NCIS wouldn’t recognize a hex bag for what it was.”

Dean huffed. “So it could pretty much be anything.”

Evan studied the dead men’s faces. Neither of them were particularly remarkable, were the blandest versions of Sam and Dean imaginable. “Sam, do you recognize them? There was a reason they were impersonating you and Dean.” Something about them was familiar, but Evan couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Miko scrolled up to the pictures of the dead men, then handed her laptop to Sam.

“Oh, no.”

Dean glanced at him. “What? What is it?”

“Steve and Tim,” Sam said, and Evan remembered.

“From the Hunter Summit last year.”

Sam nodded. “Steve Bose and Tim Janklow.”

“They must have been on a hunt,” Dean said.

“What were they hunting?” Miko asked.

“Something that killed them.”

*

They had a one-hour drive from DC to the Navy Yard at Quantico to brainstorm what they would do. They didn’t want to stay caught up with NCIS for very long. Where neither of the deceased were actual military personnel, NCIS had no jurisdiction and the case would turn over to local PD. Sam said NCIS could stay with the case if local PD invited them to stay with it, but he didn’t think that would happen.

Sam and Dean had a ready enough cover story about Steve and Tim and how they knew the two men. They’d used it before: the truth. Steve and Tim were a couple of nutty conspiracy theorists who blamed Sam for starting the Apocalypse. They’d attacked Sam one time. They were dangerous and violent.

However, an hour’s brainstorming and planning hadn’t helped them turn up what Steve and Tim had been hunting. There were a number of creatures who could have killed them. Miko, Rodney, Evan, John, and Vala had reached out to Bill back at Central Command to see if there was anything in local news reports that Steve and Tim would have read as a pattern, signaled a hunt.

Six people plus six laptops and it was hard to build a pattern out of anything while they were also conferring about supplies for their big heist.

“Got something,” John said. After Sam, he had the best eye for patterns and details.

“What something?”

“String of deaths. Brain aneurysms.” John tapped his laptop, sent links to everyone else.

“Let me guess,” Miko said. “Elliot Silver, Elijah Benjamin, David Newman, and Jacob Davidson?”

Rodney blinked at her. “How did you know?”

“Because NCIS found newspaper clippings about all of their deaths in the motel room with Steve and Tim,” Miko said.

Sam nodded, then said, “Damn.”

“Why damn?” Rodney asked.

“Elliot Silver was a petty officer on the USS Abraham Lincoln,” John read.

“So NCIS could keep the case after all?” Evan raised his eyebrows.

Rodney sighed and nodded.

Evan looked to John. Even though he was technically a civilian now, he would still look to his commanding officer first for a plan of action.

“All of us going up there will look suspicious,” John said. “You go with Sam and Dean. Get fitted with comms — earwigs. They won’t think to search you for that kind of thing. Make nice. Lay low. Get in. Get out.”

Evan nodded, and Miko hopped up, crawled past Rodney and Vala to get the case with the earwigs.

They pulled over at a gas station about half an hour away from Quantico to switch drivers. John and Vala took over driving and navigation while Sam and Dean pulled on uniforms. Rodney and Miko started arranging for earwigs, and Evan finished ordering supplies for the heist. The heist would commence as planned once they were done dealing with NCIS.

Miko and Rodney were just finishing up mic checks with Sam, Evan, and Dean when John pulled the bus up to a side street near one of the gates into Quantico that was close to NCIS.

“Call me if you need me,” John said. On the phone, he meant. To be all aggressive and bossy as their CO.

Dean nodded, and he, Sam, and Evan climbed down out of the bus. They walked to the gate. Evan had his driver’s license ready, and Sam had his military ID ready. Dean had to fumble for his wallet. The guard at the gate was young, fresh-faced, pretty. She checked their names against a clipboard, granted them entrance, dispatched another young Marine to guide them to NCIS headquarters.

There they went through security, were issued visitor passes, and directed to an elevator.

This was Sam and Dean’s show. They stood in front of Evan, at military attention. He kept behind them, posture a bit more relaxed, though his magic was buzzing at his fingertips. If NCIS had bagged and tagged evidence from Steve and Tim’s motel room, who knew what mojo they might have set off, what spells they might have triggered?

They stepped off the elevator on the appropriate floor, and Dean took point, scanned the room. He passed a couple of rows of cubicles and stopped by the first desk on his left where a pretty woman with olive skin and wavy dark hair pulled back into a practical ponytail was reading something on her computer monitor.

She had a little Israeli flag on her desk.

“Officer David?” Dean asked.

She looked up. “Yes? How may I help you?” She noticed Evan.

“Captain Dean Winchester. We spoke on the phone.”

Office David was on her feet immediately. The man at the desk opposite her - about Evan’s age, tall, blue-eyed, with light brown hair, wearing an expensive suit and stylish Italian loafers - immediately came to join her. Both of them were quickly joined by a younger man, shorter, with darker hair and a youthful face.

“Captain Winchester,” Ziva said. “Of course.”

“You brought friends,” the first man said, sounding amused, though his gaze was sharp and assessing when he flicked it over Sam and Evan.

“My brother, Lieutenant Sam Winchester.”

Sam offered a hand. “How do you do.”

“Our mutual friend, Evan Lorne.”

“Captain Evan Lorne, USAF,” the younger male agent said.

“Retired,” Evan said mildly.

The older male agent flicked a glance at Evan again, then at Sam. “You two serve together?”

“I was posted to Cheyenne Mountain before I was discharged,” Evan said. “I was retained for the project as a civilian consultant.”

“I hear I’m dead,” Dean said, and he sized the older male agent up. “How do I look, for a dead guy?”

“Pretty good,” the agent conceded.

“Captain Winchester, Lieutenant Winchester, Evan Lorne, these are my colleagues.”

“Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo.” The older male agent offered a hand. His handshake was brisk and firm and just a hair too aggressive.

“Agent Timothy McGee,” the younger agent said. In comparison his handshake was hesitant.

“I don’t know how much help we’ll be,” Sam said. “We happened to be in the area, checking in with our project liaison at the Pentagon, so we got here as quickly as we could, but other than the fact that we’re not dead, I don’t know, well, anything.”

“Please, come this way.” Ziva led them to a conference room.

Evan, Dean, and Sam arranged themselves with Dean at the head of the table, Sam to his right, Evan to his left. McGee offered them beverages. Sam requested a bottle of water. Dean requested coffee.

“Marines and their coffee,” DiNozzo said knowingly.

Evan asked for tea.

Ziva smiled at him. “A man after my own heart.”

It was McGee who went to fetch the drinks for them.

The interview was pleasant enough. Evan was only a spectator, so he sat back, sipped his tea, and studied the NCIS agents. Ziva was leading the interview – smart, she’d already established rapport with them – and McGee was taking notes, leaving DiNozzo to observe. There was a lovely symmetry to it all, three on three. DiNozzo made no secret of his study of Evan and his teammates, fixing his gaze on each of them in turn. Sometimes he’d watch who was talking, sometimes he’d watch who wasn’t talking.

Sam and Dean were a team, had been a team long before they’d ever joined the military and Project Orion. Their rhythm with each other, when they were mounting a joint defense, was flawless. Evan knew better than to get in the way.

They trotted out the usual party line, that their work was classified, but the long and the short of it was that they traveled to remote places to get views of the night sky for Deep Space Telemetry purposes. More than that they couldn’t say.

Ziva was surprised. Sam had majored in pre-law and gone on to law school, was a JAG officer. Dean’s degree from the Naval Academy was in mechanical engineering. Evan’s education had been in surveying and geophysics. How was any of that useful to Deep Space Telemetry?

Dean shrugged. “Like I said, classified.” He didn’t try to flirt with Ziva, which Evan appreciated, but also it was smart.

Ziva was a beautiful woman in her own right, and if she was from Mossad, she was skilled in using her attractiveness as a tool and probably better at it than Dean.

“Is there any reason two strangers would try to impersonate you?” Ziva asked.

“If you can say,” DiNozzo added, with no small amount of sarcasm.

Sam and Dean looked at each other, shrugged.

“No,” Sam said. “I mean, if these guys had been caught with our security passes trying to get into restricted areas of Cheyenne Mountain, that I could understand, but in some motel room out here? No.”

McGee piped up. “What about your being in DC? Could they have known about that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Dean glanced at his brother again, and Evan understood the concern immediately.

Was someone watching them? Besides Steve and Tim?

“But there wouldn’t have been any benefit to them impersonating us,” Sam said. “We can’t go anywhere secure in the Pentagon, and General O’Neill knows us. He wouldn’t have been fooled by stand-ins. We make our reports to him in person.”

“Obviously this is concerning to us,” Dean said. “If the operational security of our project has been compromised, we need to know.” He sat up straighter.

DiNozzo looked unimpressed.

Sam leaned in. “We really don’t mean to cause any trouble, and we want to be as much help as possible, but we also need to keep ourselves safe.” There they were, the puppy dog eyes. Dean was immune to them. Rodney was annoyed by them. Miko was oblivious to them. Vala was only partially resistant to them, as was John. Evan was immune to them because he spent so much time with Dean.

Ziva looked charmed by them. Puppy dog eyes from a man as large and imposing as Sam could be, coupled with his earnestness and the slightly bookish air he could give off at a moment’s notice, were pretty effective at disarming people.

McGee looked sympathetic.

DiNozzo looked very irritated that Ziva looked charmed.

“Of course,” she said. “Perhaps you recognize the men who were impersonating you?” She pushed a couple of printouts across the conference table.

Dean scooped up the photo of the main in the Marine dress uniform. Tim Janklow. “Not nearly as handsome as me. Bastard.”

DiNozzo raised his eyebrows.

Sam tapped the photo of Steve Bose in Air Force dress blues. “Were these the photos on their IDs?”

“Their SRBs, actually,” McGee said. “Someone hacked into the DoD database and changed your photos.”

“Which is why you didn’t immediately know we were alive and about gave Lorne a heart attack,” Dean said.

“If they hacked the DoD, this is pretty serious,” Sam said. “But I didn’t think Steve or Tim were capable of that.”

“You know them?” DiNozzo asked.

Dean tossed the photo down. “Yeah. Steve Bose and Tim Janklow.”

McGee scribbled notes frantically.

“Not sure how to spell the last names. Never saw them written down. But they’re not military espionage types.” Dean’s tone was derisive.

“How do you know them?” Ziva asked.

“They’re a couple of crackpots,” Dean said. “Attacked Sammy one time at a bar.”

Ziva turned wide eyes on Sam, all sympathy and concern. Evan didn’t buy it for one second, but Sam had to appear to.

“Attacked you? What happened?”

“It was - bizarre.” Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. “They had a friend with them, name of Reggie. They accused me of, get this, starting the Apocalypse.”

Ziva sat back. “The Apocalypse?”

“Yeah. They grabbed me and pinned me to a pool table and tried to force me to drink a vial of blood to prove that I was some kind of - Antichrist. Son of Lucifer.”

“Damien?” DiNozzo asked.

Sam looked confused.

Dean rolled his eyes. “The kid. From The Omen. The original, not the stupid remake with the guy from the Harry Potter movies.”

“Movies.” Sam sighed patiently. Ziva and McGee looked sympathetic.

DiNozzo nodded at Dean. “You know your movies.”

“Ignore my little brother,” Dean said. “He’s oblivious to his own cultural heritage.”

McGee pressed on. “Why would they believe that you’d started the Apocalypse?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “Before that we’d only ever seen them a handful of times at our godfather’s scrapyard in South Dakota. He’s a mechanic, like our dad was. Steve, Tim, and Reggie were small-time mechanics, too, I think. Came by the yard to pick up parts. I’d barely ever said a word to them. So this came out of nowhere.”

“You said they were with someone named Reggie,” Ziva said. “Could he still be out there?”

Dean shook his head. “No. Reggie’s dead.”

“Dead?” DiNozzo asked.

“Hunting accident, or at least that’s what I heard,” Dean said.

“You heard.” Ziva raised her eyebrows. “So you don’t know.”

“No. We weren’t friends, didn’t send each other postcards.” Dean sat back in his chair, eyeing her warily.

“Would they have blamed Sam for Reggie’s death?” Ziva asked. “Believing him to be - Darien or whatever you call him.”

“Damien,” DiNozzo corrected patiently.

“I don’t see how,” Sam said. “After that encounter in the bar, we never saw them again.”

“But if they were as crazy as you say they were,” Ziva pressed.

Sam nodded. “Yeah. It’s possible.”

“At least the better-looking one tried to be me,” Dean said, and Sam rolled his eyes.

“What about you, Mr. Lorne? Agent Lorne? What do you call yourself?” DiNozzo asked. “Did you ever run into Steve, Tim, or Reggie?” He was probably like Dean, like O’Neill, smarter than people gave him credit for.

“You can call me Evan, if you like,” he said. “Though most people just call me Lorne. For a while there I was pretty sure no one knew I even had a first name. And no, I’ve never met them. Heard of them, of course, from Sam and Dean.”

“What was Reggie’s last name?” McGee asked.

Dean had to think for a moment. “Hull. Like on a ship.”

McGee noted it down.

The door swung open, and an older man stepped into the room. If Jack O’Neill was the epitome of the quippy, flashy flyboy, hiding razor-sharp intellect under sarcasm and feigned laziness, this man was the epitome of the Marines, tall, quiet, with a laser-intense gaze and an economy of motion that spoke to physical prowess despite his silver hair.

He took in everyone in the room before striding around the table to take a seat beside DiNozzo.

“Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, our fearless leader,” DiNozzo said. “He goes by Gibbs.”

Gibbs nodded. “Gentlemen.” He looked to Ziva. “What have we got?”

Before she could answer, a young woman bounced into the room. She was adorably gothic, with black pigtails, blazing red lipstick, a skull with a pink bow on her t-shirt, a black miniskirt that flared around her thighs, and impossibly tall thigh-high boots with innumerable buckles.

“Wow.” She paused just inside the door. “You look pretty good, for dead guys.”

Dean flashed her his most charming grin. “Thanks. We work out.”

The woman laughed, charmed. “I’m Abby Sciuto, and I work in the forensics lab. I just need to take your fingerprints.”

Dean glanced at Sam. “That all right with you, counselor?”

Sam rolled up his sleeves. “Sure thing, ma’am.”

“And him,” DiNozzo said, lifting his chin at Evan.

Abby started to nod, paused when she noticed his glass eye. Evan always noticed when people realized he had a fake eye. McGee had looked discomfited when he first saw it. Ziva had noted it in her general catalog of his appearance but didn’t seem bothered by it. DiNozzo looked intrigued. Gibbs had noted it the same way Ziva did.

Evan shrugged off his jacket, unfastened his cufflinks.

“You dress pretty sharp,” DiNozzo said, “for a guy on a government salary. What’s your style? Armani? Brioni?”

“No,” Evan said. “A good amount of it is vintage, belonged to my grandfather. My grandmother is a creditable tailor and has altered some of the pieces for me, but as I understand it, I take after my grandfather very much and little alteration was necessary.” He rolled up his sleeves to just below his elbows, careful not to reveal his tattoos.

Abby handed out little towelettes so they could clean their hands, then she started with Sam. But she kept looking at Evan, and at his glass eye.

Evan said, gently, “You can see it if you like.”

“Abby,” DiNozzo hissed. “Don’t be rude.”

“I’m not ashamed of it,” Evan said. “I get them custom-made. I know a glass blower on an art commune.”

While Abby took their fingerprints, Ziva summarized the interview so far for Agent Gibbs. His expression was impossible to read, though Evan had no doubt he was processing every single detail and making connections, drawing conclusions.

Once Evan was finished giving his fingerprints, he smiled at Abby, eased his false eye out, cleaned it with a towelette, handed it to her.

“It’s not a sphere,” DiNozzo said, surprised.

“No. The way they’re built, you can still use the muscle to move it around. Modern ones are almost undetectable. It’s beautiful.” Abby smiled at Evan. She turned it over, traced the spell sigils curiously. “Do these hurt?”

“They’re a bit scratchy, but I’m used to them by now.”

“What are they for?”

“They have spiritual significance,” Evan said.

DiNozzo made a face. McGee looked surprised. Gibbs’s expression continued to be unreadable. Ziva looked thoughtful.

“Thank you,” Abby said quietly. She handed the glass eye back.

Evan cleaned it off, popped it back in. Everyone but Dean and Gibbs averted their gazes when Evan did so.

Abby gathered up the fingerprint cards, fluttered her fingers in farewell, and bustled out of the conference room.

Gibbs grabbed the file that was at Ziva’s elbow, flipped it open. “Crime scene photos. Anything here you recognize, that’s of significance to you?”

“If it’s related to our classified work,” Sam began.

“Anything you can tell us would be helpful,” Gibbs said.

He laid the photos out on the table slowly, neatly, deliberately. Building the room so they’d have a sense of how everything was laid out in real life. Which of the team had taken the photos? Sam, Dean, and Evan leaned in to look.

It looked like a room a couple of hunters had been crashing in - clothes, weapons, take-out containers and empty bottles of cheap beer. The collage of newspaper clippings on the wall was familiar - Evan had made more than one himself. He leaned in, peered over Dean’s shoulder, and saw sawed-off shotguns. Empty shotgun shells waiting to be reloaded. Bags of rock salt.

Had they been hunting a ghost or just restoring their anti-ghost supplies during some down time?

Sam reached out, tapped one of the photos. “What’s this? It looks like - red dirt. Clay, maybe? Like the kind you get from a broken terracotta pot.”

Red clay. Not changelings again? Dean glanced at Evan. Evan shrugged.

Photographs could sometimes catch the supernatural, but Evan couldn’t see the remnants of any mojo or magic. No one in the conference room had been around serious mojo either. No one they’d passed on their way in had been possessed by a demon or host to an angel.

“Abby’s still running it,” Gibbs said.

“Apart from illegal weapons possession, which doesn’t surprise me, given their general disregard for law and order, nothing twigs with me.” Dean shrugged and sat back.

Evan rolled down his sleeves, re-fastened his cuffs, shrugged his jacket back on.

“What about you?” Gibbs looked at Sam.

“I’ve got nothing,” Sam said. “Unless - did they have pictures of us?”

“Not that we found,” McGee said.

“Did they have laptops or smartphones?” Evan asked. “Might be some clues on there.”

“Abby’s working on those too,” Gibbs said. He hadn’t showed them any photos or laptops.

Dean huffed. “Is Abby your entire forensics department?”

“Yes,” DiNozzo, McGee, and Ziva said at the same time.

“Oh.” Dean cleared his throat. “She must be an impressive woman.”

“She is,” Gibbs said. “Anything you can think of? Any reason at all these two might have tried to impersonate you two?”

For the hunt, obviously. Because one of the victims of the monster they were tracking had a military connection and impersonating military officers would have been useful to get more information about the victim, find out the connection or the pattern.

“No,” Sam said, as earnest as ever.

Gibbs said, “I don’t believe you.”

He was right not to.

Evan sat up a little straighter, wary.

First tactic - claim innocence, like any other innocent witness.

“Believe what you want,” Dean said, “but we don’t know anything other than that Steve and Tim were pretty crazy.”

Gibbs said, “You will tell me the truth.” So he wasn’t buying Dean’s act.

Sam said, “Well, this interview is done.” He stood up, all puppy dog eyes and bookish ease gone, drew himself up to his full height.

McGee looked alarmed. Ziva looked ready to stab him with her pen.

Gibbs barked, “Sit down!”

Dean jumped.

Evan pressed the button on the side of his watch to send an emergency message to the rest of the team. Who knew what they could and couldn’t hear through the earwigs, because they’d been silent on their end, or at least filtered out their chatter.

Maybe Vala was right and they should have worn bodycams just in case.

“If we’re not free to go,” Sam said, “we’re officially in custody, in which case I’m invoking my right to silence and an attorney and I’m advising my teammates to do the same.”

DiNozzo’s expression turned sour. Everyone had forgotten that Sam was a lawyer. Then his phone buzzed, and he unlocked it with a swipe of his thumb, scanned the screen.

“Lieutenant Winchester,” he said, “is there any reason you’d be emailing an associate of Steve and Tim’s?”

Dean tensed.

Evan’s watch buzzed. Message received. Backup on the way.

“Depends on the associate,” Sam said. “Like we said, they knew our godfather Bobby Singer.”

“Your godfather pass messages between you?” DiNozzo asked. He cleared his throat. _“From Sam: Lignum vitae is not an acceptable substitute for palo santo. Palo Santo is for demons, lignum vitae is for vampires.”_

Dean rolled his eyes. “Our entire team is on the same guild on this MMORPG called Knight Hunters. One of our teammates got us subscriptions for Christmas. It helps us kill time when we have it. Sam is all about collecting components and upgrading weapons. It warms his little heart.”

That was true, but Sam’s email had nothing to do with video games.

“Why would your godfather be talking to those two about video games?” Gibbs asked.

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought it was kind of odd that he asked me, but he asks me odd stuff all the time. I’m the family egghead. Or Google. Bobby doesn’t always think to go to Google first.”

“There’s a website for that,” McGee said, and he cast DiNozzo an annoyed look. “It’s called _Let Me Google That For You.”_

“Perhaps that is true,” Ziva said, “but according to Abby, neither lignum vitae nor palo santo are components for weapons, armor, or spells on Knight Hunters.”

“Apparently Abby Googled that for you,” DiNozzo said.

McGee looked at Sam, betrayed.

Gibbs said, “Tell me what’s going on.”

“That’s classified,” Sam said flatly. “And besides, your two victims? Not actually military personnel. Jurisdiction isn’t yours.”

“Arrest them,” Gibbs said.

Sam lifted his chin. “On what grounds?”

“Obstruction of justice,” Gibbs said.

There was a knock at the door.

A curly-haired agent poked his head into the room. “Agent Gibbs, there’s a Major John Sheppard here to see you.”

Ziva said, “Their CO.”

Gibbs was on his feet. “Ziva, DiNozzo, don’t take your eyes off them. McGee, with me.” He swept out of the room, McGee on his heels.

Evan’s radio crackled on. He managed not to wince or otherwise show any sign that his attention was divided.

DiNozzo stood up, smoothed down his jacket, shifted so he was between Sam and the door.

“Look,” Dean protested. “We came here to help you.”

 _“John’s trying a bit of a Hail Mary pass,”_ Rodney said, _“but if what I’m reading in this Gibbs person’s file is right, we won’t get much past him. If we’re caught, we’re on our own.”_

Dean swore softly under his breath.

DiNozzo frowned. “What?”

Sam’s expression was grim.

Dean cleared his throat.

The door opened.

Gibbs strode into the room. McGee and the curly-haired agent were escorting John between them.

“Sir,” Dean said, shooting to his feet.

John’s expression was grim. “Sorry, Captain. I tried.”

“Are you under arrest too?” Evan asked.

“He is,” Gibbs said. “Anyone else on your team we should be talking to?”

“No,” John said. “The rest of my team is long gone.” His words sounded casual, confident. They were, in fact, an order.

 _“But John -”_ Rodney began.

Vala said, _“Time to go.”_

McGee checked his phone. “The rest of the team includes Dr. Miko Kusanagi, Dr. Meredith McKay, and a civilian security consultant named Vala Mal Doran.”

Gibbs frowned. “Mal Doran. What country is she from?”

McGee squinted at his phone. “The UK.” 

“It is not a name style I am familiar with,” Ziva said.

McGee continued, “Dr. McKay is a Canadian National. Dr. Kusanagi has dual citizenship, America and Japan.”

“Put a BOLO out on them,” Gibbs said.

“On it, Boss.” McGee ducked out of the room.

Gibbs lifted his chin at DiNozzo and Ziva. “Have them processed and booked.”

*

Unlike Sam and Dean, who’d been arrested before, Evan wasn’t sure what to expect. None of them were handcuffed, but it was pretty obvious that if they tried to struggle or run, it would be pointless, because the building was swarming with agents. They wouldn’t get very far, and they would make more trouble for themselves besides.

As soon as Miko, Vala, and Rodney were speeding away from NCIS headquarters, they cut off the connection to comms and phones and smartwatches, so NCIS wouldn’t be able to trace their locations. Sam managed to be rid of his earwig first, made like he was scratching his ear, dislodged it. Shifted till it hit the floor. Crushed it with his boot. Dean went second. Evan went third. John went fourth.

None of them were caught, thankfully.

Agents took Sam away first, probably because he was the most suspicious, having been in indirect contact with Tim and Steve.

All of them were read their rights, all of them invoked the right to counsel and the right to remain silent. John and Sam should have gotten Air Force JAG officers, Dean a Marine or Navy one. Evan would have had to settle for a public defender. JAG officers wouldn’t be dispatched very quickly, and they certainly wouldn’t have any connection to Project Orion, and all of them would be left rotting in cells because they refused to break.

NCIS would never figure out what Tim and Steve had been up to, and they’d be released. Eventually. But their work would be severely hampered.

Of course, Evan could get them all out. Since they were about to be processed and booked and probably deprived of their clothes and belongings, he would have no spell components, and he’d have to use his innate magic to free them, but magic in such an open place was a last resort.

Evan didn’t use soul magic because, well, he didn’t have a soul. He used, for lack of a better term, air magic, because he _was_ air. Explaining that to Dean hadn’t been easy. Talking it over with Carson - who knew who and what he was - hadn’t been much easier, but Carson had trusted that all Evan needed was time to adjust to the way he’d done the magical equivalent of transplanting an organ to Dean.

Dean had finally forgiven him, even if he didn’t fully understand the extent of what Evan had done for him.

He was still incredibly hesitant to ask Evan to draw on his magic to save them.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Dean said to Evan when agents came to escort him away for booking.

After they’d all invoked their right to silence and to counsel, they’d said nothing.

Evan looked up at Dean and nodded.

And Dean left.

Evan and John were left in silence while DiNozzo and Ziva tried to goad them into talking. They talked about what they were looking up about the rest of the team - Vala’s history was sketchy at best; Meredith preferred to go by Rodney, was suspected to have had a hand in his own sister’s death, which was why he didn’t have custody of his niece; Miko was a disgrace to the scientific community after she’d had a mental breakdown in the middle of a prestigious presentation (she’d been the victim of a spell by a powerful and vengeful witch); John had failed to rescue a downed pilot. They acted like they were ignoring the others in the room, having a conversation among themselves, but the conversation was designed to elicit response. They’d commented on the numerous emails Tim and Steve had received from Bobby, Sam and Dean’s hunter equivalent of a godfather. They talked about how their boss, Gibbs, was probably on a secure line to the Pentagon getting the go-ahead to interrogate them, with prejudice.

They didn’t find much on Evan. Excellent fitreps at every stage in his career. Excellent grades all through college.

“You know what they say,” DiNozzo said. “If it’s too good to be true, it isn’t.”

Ziva raised her eyebrows at him. “Don’t you mean _he?”_

DiNozzo leaned toward Evan. “What’s your secret, Mr. Perfect?”

“We invoked our right to counsel,” John said. “You can’t question us.”

DiNozzo laughed. “We can question you all we want. Whether or not you answer is your choice. See, we know those men were murdered, and we know you had something to do with it. Until you tell us what we want to know, you’re guests of Hotel NCIS.”

And Evan realized. “You don’t know that Steve and Tim were murdered.”

“Lorne,” John hissed.

DiNozzo assumed an innocent expression. “What?”

“The room was a mess, but there was no sure sign of a struggle,” Evan said. “There was no forced entry into the room. Neither Tim nor Steve had external injuries. Could’ve died from natural causes.”

“They were both shot in the head,” DiNozzo said.

“No entry or exit wounds,” Evan countered.

Ziva narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”

“You showed us crime scene photos of the room. Obviously you withheld the photos of the laptops, but based on where the bodies were found, if there had been even only entry wounds, there would have been blood on the scene. There was none,” Evan said.

“You are very observant,” said Ziva.

Evan smiled at her. “So are you.”

John kicked him in the ankle. “Lorne!”

“Sir, they can’t keep us.”

“You heard Sam. Stop talking!”

Evan wished he had some way to tell Miko, Vala, and Rodney what he’d figured out, but his watch was disconnected from his phone (he’d felt it buzz when the connection dropped) from when Miko had remotely dismantled their comm system before signing off on her end.

Once Evan was in his cell and had some modicum of privacy, he could contact the rest of the team with magic.

“No, please, keep talking,” DiNozzo said.

Agents came to take Evan away, but DiNozzo told them to take John instead, because Evan was being chatty.

As soon as John was gone, Evan lapsed into silence.

DiNozzo started when Ziva’s cellphone rang. She answered it politely, in English, but quickly switched over to Hebrew.

DiNozzo looked intrigued. He didn’t speak Hebrew, judging by the puzzled furrow of his brow, but he flipped open a notebook and started taking notes of what Ziva was saying phonetically.

She was speaking to her father, didn’t sound especially pleased to hear from him, explained she was in the middle of an investigation and at a delicate stage with a witness and could she call him back? No, she didn’t want to talk about her brother or her sister or her mother. Now was not the time. Yes, she remembered who she was and her role. She’d talk to him later, she promised. She hung up.

DiNozzo had his notebook put away before Ziva could see.

Evan said, “So you have a brother and a sister?”

Ziva looked startled.

DiNozzo lit up. “You speak Hebrew?”’

Ziva frowned. “That was nowhere in your SRB.”

Evan shrugged. “We are more than our SRBs.”

“Tell me what she said.” DiNozzo leaned in, eager. “There’s another cup of tea in it for you if you do.”

“You’ll have to do better than that, Agent,” Evan said.

The door opened, and more agents arrived, this time to take Evan. He rose, went with them voluntarily to a room in the back where there was privacy and security so he could be processed. Most of his vital stats were in his SRB, so no one asked about that. Abby had already taken his fingerprints. He posed for mug shots, and then it was time to be searched.

Evan emptied his pockets obediently - wallet, keys, phone. Some small crystals, some vials of spell components that he told them were spiritual totems. An embroidered handkerchief. Some loose change. He surrendered his watch and shoes. He and the others would be given NCIS t-shirts and sweats to get them through the night, plus socks and little disposable slippers like the kind in mid-range hotels.

He folded his jacket neatly, surrendered his cufflinks and his pocketwatch. All of his clothes were being tucked into evidence bags. Of course.

“Got any tattoos?” the curly-haired agent asked.

“Lots,” Evan said.

“How lots is lots?”

Evan shrugged off his waistcoat, folded it, then unbuttoned his shirt.

The agent’s eyes went wide when he saw the ink on Evan’s collarbones.

Evan folded his shirt, handed it over, tugged off his undershirt. He unfastened his belt, coiled it, surrendered it. The agent’s eyes went wider and wider as more and more of Evan’s tattoos were revealed.

“Someone go get Abby,” the other agent said. “We’ll need her tattoo expertise.”

Of course Abby had tattoos. The curly-haired agent ducked out. He returned a few moments later with Abby, who was wearing a white lab coat over her perky goth outfit. She was carrying a digital camera.

“Wow, that is a lot of ink. Must have cost you a fortune. How far does it go?”

Evan unfastened his trousers, stepped out of them. He left his socks on, and he left his boxer-briefs on.

“Sorry,” Abby said. “Gonna have to see it all.”

Evan toed off his socks. “Sure. I modeled for art classes in college all the time.” And he skimmed off his boxer briefs.

Immediately Abby started snapping away. “Wow. This is so intricate. I’m seeing a Hand of Fatima, stuff in Arabic, Hebrew, Norse Runes, Chinese, Japanese, some Indian dialects, Thai, Greek or Cyrillic, Hieroglyphics, is that Cuneiform? Pretty much every non-Latin alphabet is represented, plus some dead languages.”

“You know your languages,” Evan said.

“I know my tattoos. What do they say? Can you tell me? Or is that classified?”

“I’m sure you well know that the tattoos I have violate pretty much every military regulation about having tattoos,” Evan said. “They all have spiritual significance, though. It’d take a long time to explain them all.”

“Whoever designed them was a genius.”

“Thank you.”

Abby paused. “You designed these?”

“Does it not list in my SRB that I am an artist?”

“No, because you minored in Religion Studies.” Abby was an impressive woman indeed.

“My mother teaches art at Berkeley,” Evan said. “And my sister is a tattoo artist.”

“She did these for you?”

“Most of them.”

“She’s amazing.”

“She is very good at what she does.” What no one knew about Evan’s tattoos was that some of them weren’t just for working arcane spells or protecting him from all manner of supernatural dangers; a tiny fraction of them kept him bound to this body so he couldn’t take full aerial form at will, couldn’t exercise the full range of his power of his own accord.

Someone else could command him to do it, though.

Someone else had to set him free.

But he’d submitted to being bound voluntarily. He’d done everything he could to just _stay_ for Cam after he’d paid his debt to Daniel Jackson by saving Jack O’Neill and Vala from Ba’al and Qetesh. After Cam had died, he’d been cut loose, adrift. Jackson had worked a bit of additional magic to stabilize him in his current form. Dean was the one who’d noticed something was wrong with Evan, that he was drifting away, that it was getting harder to hold on, and he’d _talked_ to Evan. Made sure he was all right. Sat beside him in the Bunker or on the bus and played guitar while he drew. Watched movies with him. Cooked with him.

Evan hadn’t meant to fall in love with Dean. Hadn’t meant to fall in love with Cam before him, or any human at all.

Falling in love didn’t anchor Evan more. It pushed him further toward the sky.

He’d offered the secret of truly binding an aerial spirit to Dean, showed Dean the spells and sigils to tame him.

But he’d warned Dean.

 _If you tame me, we shall need each other._ _You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed._

Abby reached out, didn’t quite touch Evan’s hip. “The others have this same tattoo.”

She was referring to one of his anti-possession tattoos.

“Yes.”

“The two dead guys - they each had one as well.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s supposed to protect the bearer from demonic possession.” Evan wasn’t going to lie to her.

“Does it work?”

Evan raised his eyebrows. “Do you believe in demons?”

Abby faltered.

“Abby,” said the curly-haired agent, “are you done?”

“Oh! Right.” Abby resumed circling Evan and snapping photos of his tattoos.

He was obliging, holding his arms out, spreading his feet further apart, angling himself so she could get the best possible angle. The photos wouldn’t be useful for long, though. Evan’s ink was always shifting and changing, depending on whether he used spells and how he replaced them and if he found better spells to use down the road.

When she was finally finished, Evan tugged his boxer briefs back on, put on the generic clothes he was given, and followed the curly-haired agent (Abby called him “Dorney”, actual name or nickname unclear) to the holding cells.

Sam, Dean, and John were already in their cells. Dean was complaining about wanting a baseball.

They weren’t the only ones in holding, though. Petty Officer Davey Kagan was in for alleged drug distribution.

“What took you so long?” John asked.

“Relax, sir,” Evan said. “I didn’t tell them anything. Abby had to take pictures of my tattoos.”

Dean hopped up off his bunk, prowled closer to the bars of his cell. _“All_ of your tattoos?”

“Yes.”

“So you -”

“Had to take my clothes off?”

“Yes.”

“Yes I did.”

“All of your clothes?”

“I appreciate your defense of my modesty, _Miss Hannigan,_ but Ms. Sciuto was very professional.” Evan peered through the bars of his cell, straining to see Dean. “She didn’t take pictures of your tattoos?”

“Apart from the one, no,” Dean said.

“Because you only have the one,” Evan said patiently.

“She wasn’t even the one who did it. One of the other agents did.” Dean sounded sulky.

“What are you in for?” Kagan asked.

They would stick to the party line. No doubt the cells were being surveilled, and even if they weren’t, Kagan could try to play jailhouse snitch to cut a deal for himself.

“A big, stupid misunderstanding,” Sam said, and he launched into a long-winded, classic Sam tangent explanation of how Steve and Tim were super crazy, had impersonated him and Dean, and now they were in trouble and suspected of killing Steve and Tim, never mind that they had rock-solid alibis (which O’Neill would give them, but that was as far as Central Command would go, and any decent investigation would turn up zero surveillance footage of them being at the Pentagon recently unless Miko, Rodney, and Vala did some very fast hacking).

Kagan made all kinds of interested noises, said Gibbs was a real pitbull, had gone after him pretty hard, said he was responsible for the death of a shipmate, which was a total lie, he hadn’t seen Petty Officer Silver at all that day.

Dean picked up on it first. “Petty Officer _Elliot_ Silver?”

“You know him?” Kagan asked, suspicious. “Wait - you guys are plants, aren’t you? You’re undercover NCIS agents.”

“We are very much not,” Sam said. “Dean, what are you thinking?”

“You can’t make me talk.” Kagan huffed and retreated to the far corner of his cell.

“I’m thinking there might be a connection.”

“Evan,” John said, “can you reach the others?”

“I can. I’d need some time to prepare.” Evan sat cross-legged on the floor next to his bunk, closed his eyes, and started to measure out his breaths.

“No,” Dean said. “Sir -”

“They can rescue Same the way we rescued him that other time,” John said.

“That was - unpleasant,” Sam muttered.

“I don’t like that either.” Dean didn’t like it when people treated Sam like a demon. He liked it less when people treated him like an angel.

He could tap into angel radio, sometimes.

He wouldn’t admit, but he missed Cas.

Evan kept breathing. He had tattoos for each of his teammates, representing what they meant to him, connections to each of them. Rodney’s was a stylized version of Newton’s formula for gravity. John’s was the fundamental theorem of calculus integrated into helicopter rotors. Sam’s was the scales of justice set inside a devil’s trap. Miko’s was her name in Kanji, integrated with an image of the legendary sword Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi and a beautiful woman rising out of the sea, because Miko meant _beautiful child._ Vala’s was of a black cat, because she’d liked to call herself a _feline acquirer_ instead of a cat-burglar, only the cat looked like Le Chat Noir from the old French club, and instead of black fur, its fur was a series of tightly-interwoven anti-possession spells.

As for Dean, his tattoo had originally been three dashing lines, the open road he was still so fond of, even after all his years in The Corps. Once they’d come together, Evan had changed his tattoo for Dean, and it was a poem written in Aramaic and stylized into a six-petaled star. Evan still had his tattoo for Cam, Bernoulli’s theorem stylized into a bird’s wings. He had the old tattoo for Kevin, too, his name on the spine of a book.

With their names on his body, inscribed into his vessel, he could reach them.

“You could get us out, right?” John asked. “Evan? The same way you got around at Christmas, right?”

“I could,” Evan said.

“It was pretty quiet, if I recall,” John said. “Didn’t wake anyone up.”

Evan said, “I might have - had some extra help with my stealth that night.”

Dean was at the bars of his cell again. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“You were still sick!”

“I was healing.” Sleep spells were old magic, easy magic in comparison to travel portals.

Dean’s expression was aggrieved.

“If we break out,” Sam said, “we’ll be on their wanted list.”

“Then we need to convince them to let us out,” John said. “You can do that too, right, Evan?”

“I can. We just need to get one of them in here.”

“Can you do that?”

Evan closed his eyes, searched his magic. “No. Not enough connection. Let me reach out to the rest of the team, let them know we’re safe.”

“Is there anything you _can’t_ do?” John asked.

Evan felt Dean’s gaze on him. “Depends on who’s asking.”

He sank into the magical bonds he had with everyone on the team. Miko was the most open-minded. She’d figure it out first.

But he sent the message to all of them just in case.

Morse Code was tried and true. Soft, warm pulses of magic would tingle through their cores. Attenuating the connection so the pulses were discernibly long and short, discernibly in patterns, was the harder part.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked, mildly alarmed.

“Sending a message.”

Evan didn’t think anyone would be able to send a message in reply,

“I can feel it,” Dean said. “It’s - weird.”

Evan opened his eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t realize -”

Dean said, “Never mind. It’s fine. Taking one for the team and all.”

Kagan said, “Can you really get out?”

“We can,” Sam said.

“Take me with you!”

“Sorry,” Dean said, “no can do.”

*

There was nothing to do for hours. Sam and John played Prime Not Prime, to Dean and Kagan’s irritation.

Evan sent his message as many times as he could before the effort tired even him.

“Are they going to feed us?” Dean asked.

As if on cue, the door to the holding cells swung open.

Gibbs strode toward Sam’s cell.

“Just found another body dead, same as your associates Steve and Tim. Where’s the rest of your team?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said.

“If they did this -”

“They didn’t.”

More agents spilled into the room. One of them unlocked Sam’s cell, and two of them hauled him out. Interrogation, most likely.

Dean went berserk. “Sammy! Don’t you dare touch him, you -”

Gibbs swept out of the holding cells.

Dean swore, banged on the bars of his cell.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Evan said anxiously.

“Lieutenant Winchester is fine,” John said. “He’s a professional. He knows what he’s doing.”

McGee was the one who brought them food, all generic burgers from a place called Beltway Burgers, except he had a hotdog for Kagan.

“It’s kosher,” McGee said, pushing the bag through the bars.

Kagan huffed. “Thanks. Not really practising, though. Was kinda looking forward to some Beltway Burgers on my shore leave.”

“We can trade, if you like. I haven’t unwrapped mine,” Evan said. Even though he was very good at making food, enjoyed good food, he wasn’t nearly as particular about it as people thought he ought to be, as good a chef and baker as he was. He pushed his unopened bag back through the bars.

“Really?” Kagan said. “It’s not some kind of trick?”

“No,” Evan said.

McGee made the switch, thanked Evan. He looked bewildered, and after staring at Evan for a bit, he drifted out of the room.

An hour later, guards came to give them all bathroom breaks. Evan wasn’t led back to his cell after his break, though. He was led to one of the interrogation rooms.

Ziva was waiting for him.

“How did you and your friends know the victims had been found in a motel room?” she asked before he even sat down.

Evan blinked. “Pardon?”

“It was one of the very first things Lieutenant Winchester said, during the interview.” Ziva’s gaze was measured.

Evan said, “We work for something so classified not even your boss Gibbs can get clearance for it. If he had, we’d all be set free. You think we wouldn’t notice if someone hacked our teammates SRBs?”

“And yet you sounded genuinely surprised when I told you that two of your teammates were dead.”

“Guy hacks an SRB, doesn’t mean we hope or expect that he’s going to die soon after,” Evan said.

“Neither Steve nor Tim had any evidence of hacking on their laptops.”

“Well, if they could hack the DoD -”

“Lieutenant Winchester didn’t think them capable of that kind of hacking job.”

Evan shrugged.

Ziva studied him for a moment, then opened the little manila folder on the table in front of her. It was full of photographs. Of Evan’s tattoos.

She selected one, pushed it across the table. “You speak Hebrew. What does it say?”

“You speak Hebrew too,” Evan said. “You can read it.”

“It is not quite - right.”

“It’s Aramaic, not Hebrew.”

“You speak Aramaic?”

“I understand every language written on my body.” Evan was no Jackson, but Evan was no slouch, and he knew some things Jackson never could. Like how some dead languages actually sounded.

“What does it say?” Ziva asked.

“How are my tattoos pertinent to this investigation?”

“Steve and Tim had interesting tattoos as well. I am trying to understand their significance in case it is useful.”

“Google could probably tell you all you want to know.”

“What does it say?” Ziva pressed.

It was Evan’s tattoo for Dean. He said, in Aramaic, _“I am my lover’s and my lover his mine; he walks among the lilies.”_

Ziva said, “You are not like your teammates.”

“And you are not like yours.”

“How are these people dying? No entry wound, no exit wound, no injuries, so signs of forced entry. Is it some kind of new weapon?”

“If it were some kind of new weapon, I couldn’t tell you and you know it.” Evan sat back in his chair. “As for what it is - I have no clue.”

Ziva studied him some more. “What was so interesting about the clay found at the scene?”

“So that _was_ clay?”

Ziva nodded. “How did you know?”

“Instinct. Trained to see patterns. Like you.”

“Oh. So you’re an investigator? I thought you were a stargazer.” Ziva leaned in, clasped her hands on the table top.

“I thought you were an agent with Mossad.”

That set her back. She reached up, toyed with the gold Star of David on a chain at her throat.

“What was the newest victim’s name?” Evan asked.

“Tell me why you were interested in the clay, and I will tell you his name.”

“Has anyone figured out the pattern to the victims?” Evan pressed. “Other than - other than that they all have Jewish names. Elliot Silver, Elijah Benjamin, David Newman, and Jacob Davidson.”

“Steve Bose and Tim Janklow were not Jewish.”

“No, they just got in the way.” Evan’s mind spun. “I’m not John. I don’t see patterns as well as he does. Do you see it?”

Ziva frowned, and her gaze turned inward while she thought. Then her eyes went wide, and she stood abruptly.

“What?” Evan asked. “What is it?”

The power went out.

Ziva immediately turned on a flashlight.

The door opened. “Ziva?” It was Abby. “Are you all right?”

Evan felt fear spike through his life bond. “The holding cells.”

“What about them?”

“My teammates,” Evan said. “They’re in danger. We have to go.” He started for the door.

Abby squeaked and backpedaled.

Ziva stepped between Evan and the door. “No. I cannot let you out there.”

“Stand aside,” Evan said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t let me get to my teammates, I will _make_ you move.”

A thump shook the entire building.

Screams sounded from the holding cells.

Kagan. Petty Officer Davey Kagan.

Gunshots exploded over the screams.

Ziva drew her gun and ran toward the chaos.

Evan followed. Abby went to follow too, but Evan told her to stay put.

The door to the holding cells had been ripped off its hinges. Agents lay on the floor like discarded dolls; dead or unconscious, it was impossible to tell in the confusion of scattered flashlight beams.

In the cell at the end of the row, Kagan was screaming. Something massive moved in the shadows.

“What is it?” Ziva demanded.

“I don’t know, I couldn’t see it,” Sam said.

“It was big and it didn’t blink when bullets hit it,” Dean added.

Evan cast a witchlight, set it to hover over his head. Ziva spun around.

“What the hell is that?”

“Light to see by,” Evan said. “Your gun is pointless.”

“Kagan!” John shouted. “Kagan, hold on!”

Kagan stopped screaming.

A body thumped to the floor.

Dean swore.

Evan sent his witchlight down the row toward the massive shadow.

It wasn’t a shadow. It was a man. A giant naked man. Only he wasn’t human, and his crotch was as bare as a doll’s. There were divots in his chest where he’d been shot. Clay crumbled from around them.

He started toward them.

“What is it?” John asked.

Evan said, “It’s a golem.”

“No,” Ziva said tightly. “No, those are just myths, they are not real.”

“What’s the lore on a golem?” John demanded.

“I don’t know!” Sam cried. “We’ve never run into one before.”

“Ziva?” Evan asked. He peeled off his sweatshirt and his shirt. “How do you defeat a golem?”

“A golem is brought to life by a rabbi writing the word _emeth_ on its forehead,” she said, gun still aimed at the massive creature, which was shuffling toward them slowly. “If you erase the first letter, _aleph,_ then the word becomes _met,_ which is -”

“Death,” Evan said. He directed the witchlight to hover over the golem.

The golem didn’t seem to notice it. The golem did, however, have a surprisingly detailed, human-like face.

“No letters on its forehead,” he said. “What else?”

“I don’t know!” Ziva glanced at him. “Is this not your secret weapon?”

“If it was my secret weapon I’d know how to use it,” Evan said.

“That is not necessarily true.”

“If I knew how to use it, it wouldn’t still be coming toward us. _What else?”_ Evan demanded.

“Is Kagan all right?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know, I can’t see him,” Evan said. He activated all the protection spells he had to hand, for Sam and Dean and John, for himself - and for Ziva. As he triggered the various spells, he felt the ink of the tattoos warm, knew they were glowing and then vanishing.

“Again, what _the hell_ is going on?” Ziva demanded.

“Not hell,” the golem said.

“Evan, what did you do?” Dean asked.

“Shield spells.” Evan wished, desperately, that he had a weapon.

“It is not a golem,” Ziva said. “Golems cannot talk.”

“You said they had letters on their foreheads,” Dean protested. “Maybe they really _can_ talk.”

“Yes, they can,” the golem said, and suddenly it was right in front of Evan and Ziva.

Evan cast a binding spell at the golem.

No effect.

The golem swatted him aside. Evan hit the bars of a nearby cell hard, felt the air rush out of his lungs. His head spun. Dean shouted his name.

“But I am not just a golem,” it said.

“Not _just_ a golem?” Sam asked. “What are you?”

“Don’t you recognize me?” it asked Ziva.

Evan clung to the bars to keep himself upright.

Ziva backed up, eyes wide. “No. I do not recognize you. I have never seen you before.”

The golem wrenched the gun out of her hand, tossed it aside.

Evan summoned it with a half-breathed spell before it hit the ground.

“Dear sister,” the golem said, “how quickly you have forgotten me, serving two masters thus.”

 _“Tali?”_ Ziva sounded broken-hearted.

“No, sister.” The golem closed a hand around her throat, pinned her to the wall.

She choked out, “Ari?”

“My vengeance is nearly complete,” he said.

And Evan realized. Vengeful spirit. Possessing a golem.

“I am dead because you killed me,” Ari said. “But you only killed me because our father wished it.”

Evan desperately wished he had salt.

“I am unable to reach our father,” Ari continued, still pinning Ziva to the wall.

She clawed at the clay hand, kicking and struggling, but the golem was completely unfazed.

“But I killed every Eli and David I could find until you noticed. Killed those two foolish hunters, too. I am surprised to see NCIS working with them.”

“Evan,” Dean hissed.

Evan shook his head. He had to unload the gun, find some way to inscribe a spell onto the bullets.

 _“Evan,”_ Dean said again.

“Not now.”

“I have salt.”

Evan whipped around to face him.

Dean held out a tiny paper packet with writing on it. Beltway Burgers. From the french fries from earlier. Sam had one, too. John didn’t have his - he’d used it on his fries.

Evan grabbed both of them, emptied them onto his palm.

“But these pitiful hunters will be no more challenge than the others,” Ari said. “I killed them all as you, as father killed me. And now - I shall kill you. My true revenge will not be death but un-life, Eli David trying to live with the fact that all of his children are dead.”

He started to squeeze.

Ziva made a small, pathetic choking sound.

Evan lunged, clapped a hand over the golem’s mouth, forced the salt inside.

It roared beneath his palm, flung him back.

He remembered to tuck his chin at the last second.

He hit the floor, all the air forced from his lungs once more.

The golem staggered back.

Ziva lunged at it, shoved with all her might.

It toppled over with a crash, its massive head missing Evan’s feet by mere inches.

Ziva leaped over the golem, snatched the gun from Evan’s limp hand, and emptied her clip into the golem’s skull.

Evan was deaf from the sound of gunshots in such an enclosed space, could only watch as Ziva ejected the spent magazine, slammed another into place, and emptied it into the golem as well.

When she was done, Evan’s ears were ringing.

“Officer David?” Sam asked in a small voice.

She knelt on the golem’s chest, spat on her hand, and drew on the golem’s forehead. Connected some of the bullet holes to form hebrew letters.

_Emeth._

Then she pressed the muzzle of her gun to the first letter, the _aleph,_ and fired one final bullet.

The golem’s mouth fell open.

Something clattered to the floor.

Evan’s witchlight had gone wobbly with all the hits he’d taken, but he managed to summon it over to the golem once more, to help Ziva see.

She leaned down, picked up a tiny scroll. Unrolled it. She traced the letters she read there, her eyes welling with tears.

“What is it?” Sam asked.

“It is my brother’s name.”

“You should burn it,” Dean said. “To get rid of his spirit, you have to burn the last of his remains.”

“I don’t have a lighter,” Ziva said helplessly. “Rule Number Nine is never go anywhere without a knife, but there’s nothing about a lighter.”

Evan murmured a spell, held out his hand, and fire danced above his open palm. “Here.”

Ziva blinked at the flame, confused, but then she nodded, and she held the scroll out. It caught flame almost immediately.

At Evan’s feet, the golem crumbled to red clay dust.

Evan let the tiny scroll burn midair, and he turned away. He unlocked the others’ cells with quick flicks of magic, and then he went to check on Petty Officer Kagan. The man was dead. Evan unlocked his cell, knelt, closed his eyes, arranged him in a more peaceful, respectful pose.

Ziva had sunk to her knees, and she was singing a Hebrew prayer softly, _El Maleh Rachamim,_ a prayer for the dead.

The lights came on.

Gibbs, DiNozzo, and McGee spilled into the room.

“What happened?” Gibbs demanded.

Sam, Dean, John, and Evan raised their hands in surrender.

Ziva rose, turned to face her teammates. “I am not sure how to explain,” she said. “But - it was the ghost of my brother.”

Abby came spilling into the room with a cry of, “Gibbs Gibbs Gibbs! I was so scared! I -” She came up short. “What happened to your tattoos?”

Dean shrugged off his NCIS sweatshirt, shoved it at Evan. “Put this on.”

“Someone explain this,” Gibbs said. _“Now.”_

What followed was Ziva accompanying Gibbs, Sam, and John up to MTAC to put in a call to the Pentagon and General O’Neill. Director Shepard was less than pleased to be kicked out of MTAC for the conversation, and she stood at the top of the stairs, arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently.

Evan and Dean were left down in the bullpen with McGee and DiNozzo, who were both eyeing them warily.

“Tattoos don’t just disappear,” DiNozzo said. “Unless they weren’t real?”

“My tattoos are all real,” Evan said calmly.

“What happened?” McGee asked.

“Classified,” Dean said.

The printer between them came to life.

McGee scrambled to scoop up the print-out, scan it. “Non-disclosure agreement? What?”

Dean plucked a pen off of DiNozzo’s desk. “Sign it and you get to find out what happened. You could wait for Sam to explain it to you, because he’s a lawyer, but -”

McGee snatched the pen from him and started to read, paused and initialed something, kept reading.

The printer was still spitting out paper, so DiNozzo went to collect it, shuffled through it. He handed half of it to McGee, kept the other half himself, started reading. Grabbed a pen off his own desk and started to initial as well.

Gibbs, Ziva, John, and Sam came down the stairs.

“Now,” Gibbs said, “tell me what happened.”

*

Hours later, over Chinese take-out and lots of coffee, Gibbs asked,

“And you do this for a living?”

Sam and Dean nodded.

“But most people who do this are like your friends Tim and Steve,” McGee said.

“Yep. Con artists and petty thieves, scraping by how they can,” Dean said.

DiNozzo grinned. “Abby’s going to be impossible to live with. All her conspiracy theories come true.”

“We can’t tell Abby,” McGee said. “Not her or Ducky.”

Carson had helpfully provided Gibbs and his team with a mundane medical explanation for why people’s brains had been shot through without bullets or bullet wounds anywhere on their bodies.

The entire time, Ziva had been silent, eating her food mechanically and staring into nothing.

Finally she lifted her head, looked at Evan. “What will you do now?”

“Go back to work,” he said.

“How are we supposed to go back to work, knowing -?”

“If you ever run into anything you think might be - more our style,” Sam said, “you can call us.” He pushed a business card across the table.

Ziva picked it up, studied it. “Is there any way Ari could come back again?”

Sam and Dean exchanged looks.

“There’s always a possibility,” Dean said. “But you can protect yourself.”

“With tattoos like he has?” Ziva nodded at Evan.

“You don’t need this many. Just the basic ones like the others have are fine.” He nodded at Dean.

Ziva fell silent.

John cleared his throat. “Listen, could we - could we have some of the golem clay? For study. We’ve never encountered a golem before, and any information we can gather -”

“Sure,” Gibbs said. His expression was as unreadable as ever.

Golem clay. Living earth.

John was smart.

“I’ve got a tupperware container I can spare.” McGee reached into his desk.

“We’d better wait till the rest of our team gets here,” Dean said. “Rodney and Miko probably have fancy sterile containers they’ll want to use.”

“Of course,” McGee said.

“But thank you,” Sam added.

After the food and explaining was done, Gibbs dismissed his team, gave them the next day off. He, DiNozzo, and McGee headed for their cars.

Ziva stayed with them till the rest of the team arrived. She helped Rodney and Miko collect a large sample of the golem clay, and she helped Evan and the others get their personal belongings back.

Evan went to tug on his undershirt, and Ziva put a hand on his arm, stilling him.

She reached out but didn’t quite touch his aramaic tattoo. “Which one is it? He who walks among the lilies.”

Evan glanced at Dean but said nothing. He finished getting dressed.

“The place where Ari is now - is it bad? Painful?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been there. You’d have to ask Sam or Dean.”

“Will I get to see him again? And my sister, after all this?”

“I think so.”

“Good luck,” Ziva said. “With whatever you are doing next.”

“Thanks, Ziva.”

She bade him farewell, and he and the rest of his teammates headed out to the bus.

“So I take it we’re not stealing the meteorite after all,” Vala said.

Miko and Rodney were huddled over the containers of golem clay, waving their EMF meters and talking at a mile a minute.

Vala climbed into the driver’s seat, and John sat up front beside her.

Evan curled his hand around Dean’s wrist and tugged him toward the double bunk in the back.

“Are you all right?” Dean asked, reaching for Evan’s clothes.

“I’m fine,” Evan said, but Dean just raised his eyebrows, skeptical.

“When the golem threw you, I -”

“I’m _fine.”_ Evan smiled, stripped off his shirt, then his undershirt. He guided Dean’s hands to his skin. “Help me decide what new tattoos to get, hm?”

Dean stroked over the skin at the base of Evan’s breastbone, where the six-petaled flower was. “How about some more lilies?”

Evan nodded and let his eyes fall closed when Dean leaned in to kiss him.

Dean’s kisses made him feel like he was flying again.

The tattoos on his skin reminded him that he had feet of clay. As long as Dean would have him, Evan would stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Shoobie Monster Fest ghost day.
> 
> Includes quotes from The Little Prince.
> 
> Title from the song Say I by Creed.


End file.
